Black Boa
by JGene
Summary: Short story of Aki's flight home after retrieving a spirit.


THe Black Balboa raced across the ionosphere

From the ground, the celestial heavens had been untouched for weeks. No unnatural object had traversed the gulfs of the blackness that lay above.That is, until today.A single, solitary orange star began to form on the horizon. It grew brighter as it rocketed its way westward. As it sped across the sky, it left a brilliant trail of charged ions in its wake.Perhaps it was another meteor—the Perseids were due in about this time of year.But that idea would soon vanish as the orange star continued its east-to-west journey and did not make any attempt to change its orbit.That meant only one thing: it had to be a ship.

The _Black Boa_ raced across the ionosphere.Its engines were pumping hard as they disgorged their burning plasma behind them.Fusion generators were blinking their warning statuses as the ship was commanded to accelerate faster.Physiological monitors were warning Aki that she was already in G-LOC levels and that she was in serious danger of blacking out.Color was something that she could no longer see. Tunnel vision gave her a pencil-thin view of her cockpit and surrounding objects.Holographics and alarms continued to blink and shrill their warnings.

She desperately had to get away.

Colonel Hein was a little less-than-impressed with her failure to stay out of USMF-designated military airspace.The ground campaign was still hot and it was not going well for them.Hein had sent up a pair of _bulldogs_ to chase her away after she had landed and was on the ground for twenty minutes.But she had successfully retrieved the spirit that she had been looking for.

The attack craft were barreling up behind her and were accelerating at nearly 6.5 gees.Aki wondered how the pilots in those ships could still remain conscious, but then it dawned on her that USFM fighter pilots were some of the best pilots the world had ever seen.They were hand picked and put through a near-torturous training program that could teach their bodies to withstand the most punishing of accelerations.Accelerations far beyond what normal people would ever be expected to withstand during their lifetime.

What worried Aki the most wasn't the speed at which the craft were gaining on her; it was the fact that she was rapidly approaching their weapons range.Even though the craft specialized in bioetheric weaponry, they still had a very capable suite of conventional lasers to destroy offending targets.And a single solitary strike from their lasers would be able to reduce her ship into a spray of hot metal tumbling through the atmosphere, she did not want to call their bluff.

The _Black Boa_ surged onward towards New York half a world away—the sun was starting to creep over the terminator.Blinding yellow and white light soon filled the cockpit of Aki's ship as the acceleration reached 5 gees.The ship was starting to convulse and creak loudly as it groaned under its incredible weight.Aki's vision had now been reduced to spots and shapes, but she could still make out where everything was in the cockpit.She forced her lead fingers to type commands to the ship._Can't be much longer_, she thought to herself.

Behind her the sleek fighters had begun to look like comets as radiant plasma began to buffet their hulls.They opened up their weapons pods.Aki received a transmission—it was text only, but she didn't have to guess as to what its contents were."This is your _final_ warning.If you re-enter USMF-designated military airspace, you craft will be destroyed. Do _not_ attempt to turn around."_Clear enough_, Aki thought and sent her acknowledgement

The _bulldogs_ responded by spitting up and curving in a sharp "U" back towards where they had came.Aki didn't even want to begin to think about the stresses going on inside those ships at that moment.But at least she had managed to evade certain destruction yet another day.Aki instructed the ship to begin to decelerate.

New York was now on the horizon and she patched in flight control at the barrier city to request docking authorization.Normally she would have tried to speak, but her jaws and whole body were absolutely on fire from the terrible gravity she had just been through.Blood started to return to her empty retinas and her vision slowly started to return.She would undoubtedly need a few days to rest, and probably even longer before the aches in her bones would go away.

Aki's worn muscles managed a tired smile as she took silent comfort in the fact that she had accomplished her mission and retrieved yet another spirit.She hoped and prayed that the next ones would not be as difficult or as adventurous to obtain.


End file.
